“Even leftwing performers in Edinburgh seem unsure what the best response to current affairs should be. Some feel that making Brexit party leader Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tory MP, and Boris Johnson into figures of fun has backfired. … Other young performers at the festival have deliberately made the choice to ‘stay silly’, in spite of their political feelings.” – The Observer (UK)
Blog
Leonard Slatkin On The Role Of A Music Director During An Orchestra Strike
“In virtually every case, there lurks a question that each musical leader must ask themselves: Should I get involved or stay on the sidelines? It is a valid query, but one that is filled with potential peril, no matter which path the conductor chooses. Disputes over the past decade have shown both sides of this decision and its aftermath.” – Tim Smith Blog
You Probably Haven’t Heard *Of* This Tune, But You’ve Almost Certainly Heard It. Is It History’s Most Enduring Melody?
“La Folia” seems to have appeared first as a folk-dance tune in late medieval Portugal. Over the next century, it spread to Spain and Italy and composers started adapting it; in the 17th and 18th centuries, “La Folia” and variations on it were all over the place (even colonial Latin America). Today some of those old pieces are being heard in concert again, while the melody turns up in pop songs and The Addams Family‘s theme, often without contemporary musicians knowing where it came from. – BBC
Seattle Arts Groups Protest State Proposal To Require Non-Profits To Pay Employees More Overtime
In a letter on behalf of the Seattle Art Museum, the Seattle Opera, the Pacific Northwest Ballet, the Seattle Symphony, the Seattle Theatre Group and a who’s who of other ritzy local institutions, the signatories warn that L&I’s proposal “is unreasonably too high, and would negatively impact the arts and culture services and programs we offer to our communities.” – Crosscut
Despite Government Pressure, Hong Kong Arts And Culture Workers Support Protests And Strikes
With many of Hong Kong’s main cultural institutions being government-operated or -funded, a large number of workers in the arts-and-culture field are considered civil servants, which means they take big risks if they participate in the demonstrations currently rocking the territory. Nevertheless, they persist. – The Art Newspaper
Netflix And Amazon India Are Taking On Material Bollywood Has Never Dared Touch
New features and series from the streaming giants deal frankly with such subjects as corruption, government dysfunction, the drug trade, religious and communal violence, and female sexuality. Says the director of one such series about why online studios can treat topics Bollywood can’t, “It’s a given that movie-watching in India is a family experience, a community experience. Families didn’t sit together to see Sacred Games.” – The Guardian
Toni Morrison, 88
“The first black woman to receive the Nobel Prize in literature, … Ms Morrison placed African Americans, particularly women, at the heart of her writing at a time when they were largely relegated to the margins both in literature and in life. With language celebrated for its lyricism, she was credited with conveying as powerfully, or more than perhaps any novelist before her, the nature of black life in America, from slavery to the inequality that went on more than a century after it ended.” – The Washington Post
At Louvre, Reservations Will Be Mandatory By End Of This Year
The world’s most visited museum has become a victim of its own success, with its usual crowd control problems made even worse by the move of the Mona Lisa to a new room. So reservations, which have been available but not required for entrance, will be made mandatory. – France 24 (AFP)
‘I Have Never Seen Such Chaos’: Mona Lisa’s First Days In New Room At Louvre Have Been Rather Messy
That quote comes from a longstanding guide at the museum, who added, “I did not think it was possible to show such amateurism.” Paris’s most visited painting has been moved while its usual room, the Salle des Etats, is being renovated. But the Louvre’s management seems not to have thought through traffic flow and crowd control issues. – Artnet
Dancers At Rome’s Ballet In Open Rebellion Against Their Director, Who Is (They Say) Disrespectful And Abusive
According to a letter from the dancers’ unions at the Rome Opera Ballet to the theater’s board (a letter which Italy’s largest press agency published in full), Eleonora Abbagnato screamed obscenities at them, threatened (with more obscenities) not to renew their contracts, and called the Rome Opera “a shit theater.” What’s more, Abbagnato is often absent from the company she’s supposed to be running, as she is still an étoile at the Paris Opera Ballet. – Gramilano (Milan)